Is Trump too sleazy to be guilty?

The $130,000 payment made to Stormy Daniels as hush money has been a hot topic over the last few weeks.  Was this an illegal campaign contribution or not?   Did Trump know about the payment or not?   Did Trump reimburse his attorney or not?

If the payment was made in order to influence the election, or prevent negative influence over the election, then it was a campaign contribution unless Trump made it himself.   But Trump had stated that he did not know about the payment at the time.  He has stated that Cohen represented him. 

Much has been made over the fact that an attorney cannot settle a case without his client’s approval.  If Trump did not know about it, how could he have approved it? 

There is one scenario that has not been explored:

If covering up bad behavior was something that happened regularly going back way before the campaign, then it is entirely reasonable that Trump could have instructed his attorney to handle all such issues and could have authorized Cohen to confidentially settle them up to a certain dollar amount without further authorization.  His ongoing $35,000 monthly retainer payments to Cohen actually bolster this argument.   He essentially budgeted $35,000 per month to cover any consequences from his sleazy behavior.  $35,000 per month to a billionaire is about the same as $25 to people like you and me.

Personally, I can easily believe that Trump had just such an arrangement with Cohen.   After all, Cohen was his “fixer”.   Remember, Trump was caught on tape bragging that since he was a celebrity, he could randomly grab women by their private parts.  I think it’s safe to assume he actually did do that to women on occasion.  He also bragged about walking into women’s dressing rooms whenever he wanted as well.

While there is NO EXCUSE for that kind of behavior, we all know that there are some women that would have willingly accepted his assaults and returned the “affection”.   Others would have silently acquiesced out of fear or intimidation.  Others might have slapped him or slugged him.   Finally, it stands to reason that at least some of them would have taken some sort of legal action.  Given that the Billy Bush conversation happened almost 15 years ago, this does show a pattern of bad behavior going back decades.  Does anyone really believe that Stormy Daniels and the Playmate were the only two who complained?   And isn’t also likely that even Trump has occasionally been falsely accused by someone just looking to make money?   

I do NOT know for sure if this was what really happened or not.  But it DOES explain the actions of both Cohen and Trump, and explains how Trump really might not have known about the specific payments. 

If this WAS the case, and these types of settlements were so routine that his attorney was authorized to settle up to a certain amount without even contacting Trump, that pretty much negates the campaign contribution issue.

It kind of comes down to this:  If this was an isolated incident that required a payment right before the election, a crime probably was committed.  But, if Trump was so sleazy and immoral that these settlements were routine, then he probably did NOT violate election finance laws.